{"id":12689,"date":"2015-01-07T07:24:59","date_gmt":"2015-01-07T11:24:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/?p=12689"},"modified":"2015-01-05T15:25:20","modified_gmt":"2015-01-05T19:25:20","slug":"review-of-barzakh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/review-of-barzakh\/","title":{"rendered":"Review of Barzakh"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Don Wellman<\/strong> \u00a0on Immanent Occasions<\/em>; opening paras follow \u2014 read the full review here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Barzakh: Poems 2000-2012,<\/em> Pierre Joris, Black Widow: Boston 2014<\/p>\n

Barzakh <\/em>is largely constructed from the poet\u2019s work over the first decade of the new millennium, much of it biographical in nature. Like Louis Zukofsky, Pierre Joris interrogates \u201cthe overtly complex semantic unit we call \u2018life.\u2019\u2019 I am following Mark Scroggins in this phrasing. Several structural conceptual elements shape the collection, among them the notion of \u2018barzakh\u2019 (from the Arabic, an isthmus, also associated with limbo). \u00a0As used in the teachings of Ibn Arabi, \u2018barzakh\u2019 is an in-between space that both separates corporeal from incorporeal realms of existence and allows communication through the barrier or limbo like margin that separates the two. \u2018Barzakh\u2019 both articulates the two realms and instantiates the possibility of their parallel if partially overlapping existence. When I read \u201cmargin\u201d in this context I think of Derrida\u2019s use of the term. Joris\u2019s use of the term also reminds me of Victor Turner\u2019s concept of liminality. Ritual, language and ecology are recurring, complementary themes throughout his text. The everyday touches the spiritual in many of the most \u201clyrical\u201d moments in the collection: \u201clove is \/ what tenses \/ across the\/ space between. \/\/ Love this \/ morning is \/ me writing \/ at Friendly\u2019s\u201d (210). Concern with for aesthetic structure manifests itself from insanely perceptive rhyming couplets like that of \u201cis\u201d and \u201ctenses\u201d to the macro level of the architecture of the whole.<\/p>\n

Barzakh<\/em> culminates with a multivocal, polyphonic libretto to human agency with respect to environmental degradation, \u201cThe Gulf.\u201d The trigger to this recitation is, of course the Deep Water Horizon Disaster of April 20, 2010. \u201cThe Gulf\u201d, with its hymn-like elements, is not only capstone of the collection, but an unfurling of concerns that form the moral fiber of poetry and its social responsibilities. \u201cThe Gulf\u201d in its first and second sections is a loose trans-creation of the first truly modernist poem, Mallarme\u2019s, \u201cA Throw of the Dice.\u201d The second element of \u201cThe Gulf\u201d is also made from found materials that serve as solo and choral testimony to the destruction wrought by the oil spill. The final section includes a mantra-like recitation of the various etymological meanings of \u201cgulf,\u201d bringing it through chasms and swallowings to a near synonymy that is also an antimony with \u201cbarzakh.\u201d The complex of interwoven allusions and references pulses with a beautiful energy. The poet\u2019s mindfulness addresses language and poetry, the root material of our shared reality. These concerns are embedded throughout and announced from the first pages of the poem, where we find a bilingual ode, largely in French, addressed to Jack Kerouac, a necessary gesture in the direction of America\u2019s multi-lingual and immigrant heritage. The poem acknowledges the forces the propel travel across landscapes, a central concept of Joris\u2019s \u2018nomad\u2019 poetics. In Joris\u2019s case both his adopted home and American citizenry, combined with his European heritage as a native Luxembourg, have impelled global, multinational travels, most notably his engagement the literature of the Maghreb.<\/p>\n

[ctd.]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Don Wellman \u00a0on Immanent Occasions; opening paras follow \u2014 read the full review here. Barzakh: Poems 2000-2012, Pierre Joris, Black Widow: Boston 2014 Barzakh is largely constructed from the poet\u2019s work over the...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,1],"tags":[990,286],"class_list":["post-12689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-review","category-uncategorized","tag-barzakh","tag-donald-wellman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12689"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12689\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12691,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12689\/revisions\/12691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}